Siblings check out UC San Diego

Goal of weekend is to have families feel connected to university

Engineering students Christina Nilles, left, and Matt McCoy, count down before dropping eggs from the second floor of a building at UC San Diego's first Siblings Weekend, an extension of their Parent and Family Programs. The egg drop was a competition sponsored by the Triton engineering Student Council. Teams could use straws, popsicle sticks, cotton balls and tape to try to cushion the fall.
— Peggy Peattie

Engineering students Christina Nilles, left, and Matt McCoy, count down before dropping eggs from the second floor of a building at UC San Diego's first Siblings Weekend, an extension of their Parent and Family Programs. The egg drop was a competition sponsored by the Triton engineering Student Council. Teams could use straws, popsicle sticks, cotton balls and tape to try to cushion the fall.
— Peggy Peattie

As a first-generation U.S. citizen and the first in his family to attend college, UC San Diego sophomore Jehoan Espinoza hopes he’s blazing an academic path his little brother will want to follow.

To that end, he invited 10-year-old Mark to this month’s Siblings Weekend at the La Jolla campus. For two days, students and siblings spent time together watching college basketball, sharing a picnic lunch and finding ways to try to keep intact an egg dropped from the top of a building, as well as other activities.

UC San Diego, which offered the program for the first time this year, is one of more than a dozen schools nationwide that invite siblings to spend time on campus with their brothers and sisters, including some programs that have been around more than 15 years, said Laci Weeden, director of the university’s Parents and Family Program.

UCSD student Nicole Delacruz held her sister Maria, 7, on her lap as other sisters Anne, 16, center, and Mary, 12, right, watch their egg package being dropped from the second floor in a sibling egg drop competition.— Peggy Peattie

+Read Caption

UCSD student Nicole Delacruz held her sister Maria, 7, on her lap as other sisters Anne, 16, center, and Mary, 12, right, watch their egg package being dropped from the second floor in a sibling egg drop competition.
— Peggy Peattie

With heightened involvement of parents, many colleges have hosted Family Weekends for years, giving parents, grandparents and siblings the chance to get a feel for campus life, meet professors and even, in some programs, sit in on classes.

Weeden brought the idea of offering a sibling event when she moved to UC San Diego in December 2011 from North Carolina State University. The goal of the program is to help college students feel supported by families while pursuing their education goals.

“We hope that the family members feel good about UC San Diego and that this further helps them to be connected to the university,” Weeden said. “We want all the families to feel like UC San Diego cares about the entire family, that the entire family is part of the Triton family.”

Siblings Weekend

UC San Diego’s Siblings Weekend was open to any undergraduate student who wanted to invite family members ages 7 to 16 to visit campus. The cost was $25 for the college student and $35 per guest. In some cases, parents or older relatives also signed up to attend. About 150 people participated.

Some of the students who signed up, like 19-year-old Espinoza, said they were particularly interested in motivating their younger siblings about college by giving them a taste of campus life.

The San Fernando Valley teen said he seized on the weekend event because he thought it would help his brother focus on education at an early age — to start reading more and thinking about the future.

“I just want him to have that college environment, to already know that he can go to college. That his big brother is doing amazing things, he can do amazing things as well,” said Espinoza, who is majoring in international studies.

“College isn’t just fun, but it is also work. It is a mixture of both,” he said. “I want him to realize he wants to go school sooner than later.”

By the end of the event, Espinoza said his brother was saying he wanted to come to UC San Diego when he is older.

Weeden said she thinks she would have benefited from such a program when she went to college in the 1990s. Her mother, who lived in Washington D.C., dropped her off her freshman year at Appalachian State in North Carolina— and came back graduation weekend.

Weeden would reach out to her mother for help when she came across student problems such as needing to drop a class, deal with roommate issues or when she got sick. But her mother was unable to assist in navigating the college red tape and instead would send her to her resident adviser for assistance.

“She was good about sending care packages and sending cards, but she was a single parent so it was hard for her to come down,” Weeden said.

Many schools have offered events such as Family Weekends to help to provide parents information they can use to help their student. This fall’s Family Weekend at UC San Diego attracted about 1,750 people, up from around 900 the year before.

San Diego State University has organized a family weekend for the past 15 years, inviting parents and other relatives of students to visit campus in October, just a few weeks after the fall semester begins, said Michelle Guerra, assistant director of new student and parent programs and is parent liaison for the university.

The majority of students who participate are freshmen or transfer students new to the campus and the timing of the event is “very intentional” — early in the fall semester when new students might be questioning their decision or wondering if the university is the right fit for them.

“They might be experiencing roommate issues or homesickness. We invite loved ones to give them the motivation and encouragement to keep on going,” Guerra said.

The University of San Diego in years past has hosted a Family Weekend and a Grandparents Weekend but combined the two events this fall, attracting about 2,000 participants. Siblings are welcome to attend homecoming to visit with their brothers or sisters, said USD spokeswoman Melissa Wagoner.

“These types of events help us build the USD community. Current students, alumni, parents, and friends join together to share Torero spirit and to relive the good ol’ days while giving current students a sense that they really are ‘Toreros for life,’ ” Charles Bass, Director of Alumni Relations, said in a statement.

Weeden and others who work in student affairs say student opinion surveys show a link between strong family support for students and academic success.

By getting families involved and informed about the way things work, a parent can remind a student about tutoring resources on campus or direct them to go to the student health center when they get sick.

Breanna Caso, an 18-year-old freshman studying nano engineering at UC San Diego, not only had her 10-year-old sister Nicole at the siblings weekend but her cousin, her father and her grandfather also participated.

Caso, who lives in Temecula, said she was excited about showing her sister around the school. “I hope that she’s really going to start thinking about college and how to get there because it’s not that easy to get into UCSD or any of the UCs nowadays,” Caso said. “It is something you have to work for and you have to be motivated.”

Breanna’s mother, Marcia Caso, said she thought the weekend not only was a bonding experience for her family but a great motivator for her youngest daughter, who reported that she had a great time.